I need to catch up on some random shots worth sharing. This first is a prayer chapel I adopted on my last ride along the Oklahoma River. It was a cool shady spot with a strong breeze that day, perched above the middle dam on the Oklahoma River. Notice the bike is still decked out in commuter gear.

The last trip I took out to Draper, I spotted these sand plums. They are about the size of the end of my thumb, which is typical for this wild fruit. The crop is really very sparse this year; it’s the same with the blackberries. That bright red one is very nearly ripe — you look for translucence after it turns red. I found one that had dropped off and caught between two limbs, quite tasty but poor quality of flesh.

At the little park on the very south end of Draper I stopped and noticed that the large flat sandstone area is completely under water. All you can see of it is the faint coloration under the surface. The shelf runs way out and off to the right. That was my last ride out to Draper.

I noted the other day about riding around the new Trails Park up on NE 23rd, just east of Air Depot Boulevard. This is what the parking lot looks like. Notice that my bike is now stripped down. I had just finished taking all but the “black trail” because I wasn’t in the mood to explore it yet. The trail head is just to the left of the kiosk where you can look at a map of the trails. They run off to the right, but part of it is hidden by the tall grass in the background.

On this areal image, I outlined the parking area with a colored rectangle, and that curvy red loop shows the approximate area of where the trails run. It’s all single-track, just a few small and fairly shallow sand pits. The “white loop” is the easiest, running mostly through the grassy area on the north side. There’s a “green loop” which is all out-n-back that runs along the banks of Soldier Creek. The link between the green and back loops takes you across the creek on the bridge built for the oil well access road in the center of the image. The “blue loop” is mostly a long and wide one on the southern end. What makes it slightly more challenging is a lot of artificial humps and a few banked turns. I was able to ride the whole thing at a fairly quick pace, keeping it in the same B-4 gear the whole way except a brief shallow climb on as the back loop runs southward upslope toward the railroad tracks.

My whole point in riding is simply playing. It’s the joy of being in the midst of natural foliage and hearing the greetings and chatter of the trees. I want to get my workout without noticing, because I’m too busy focused on having a fun ride. It works quite well for that. It’s only 2.5 miles north from where I live, and after the ride I was pumped enough to ride across the empty grassy fields west of Crutcho Creek as I worked my way back to Air Depot Boulevard. I’m doing my best to shift over to shorter and more intense rides, and this was a great way to do it.